Seeing is Believing - Part 2

The Photographers' Gallery is oddly laid out, with separate entrances to its two gallery spaces, and there are usually two exhibitions opening at the same time. So after looking at the Seeing is Believing show I described in my previous post, I went round to the café to look at Insomnia, an installation by the French photographer Antoine d'Agata. I'm not sure the café area is the ideal location; although a warning of "sexually explicit" images is displayed, it's something of an understatement. The wall is covered with a montage of several hundred framed pictures, mostly in a grainy, dark black and white, of night scenes, sex acts, desolate streets, and (incongruously?) a dead roe deer. Interestingly, in the video interview showing in the entrance, d'Agata is standing in front of the wall, with the deer image centre screen. The overall effect is haunting and disturbing, and sometimes threatening. Even the very ordinary apartment building below is mysterious - in the light of the many images surrounding it, I couldn't help wondering what is going on behind these blank darkened windows.

Many of d'Agata's pictures can be seen in his Magnum portfolio.

pictures © Antoine d'Agata/ Magnum Photos. No infringement intended.